Fact Check: No, coughing is not as effective as CPR during heart attack

Hyderabad: A Facebook post advising coughing as an emergency CPR (Cardiopulmonary resuscitation) method till medical help arrives is being widely shared on social media.

The viral post reads, “You can help yourself (during a heart attack) by coughing repeatedly and very strongly! Take a deep breath for each cough, and it has to be deep and lingering, like coughing mucus from the bottom of the pelvis. You have to repeat breathing and coughing every second until you get to the hospital or until the heart starts to beat normally. Deep breathing makes it possible to get oxygen into the lungs, and the coughing movements strengthen the heart and blood circulation. The pressure on the heart also helps in regaining a normal heartbeat. This way, victims of heart attack can come to the hospital to receive proper care.”

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is misleading.

Firstly, it would not be possible to perform CPR on someone conscious. If you are unconscious and need CPR, you cannot cough because you are unconscious. If you are conscious and can cough, then you do not need CPR. So, calling it a CPR method is highly misleading.

Moreover, heart attack and cardiac arrest are different. Heart attacks occur when the heart’s oxygen supply gets cut off, which is usually caused by blockages in the cardiac arteries that feed the heart oxygen-rich blood.

Whereas, a cardiac arrest is when your heart suddenly stops beating and serious irregularity in the heartbeat (arrhythmia) can cause this.

Cleveland Clinic says that cough CPR is an effective way to maintain circulation for a minute or two following cardiac arrest. However, it’s not useful for during a heart attack.

According to Heart.org while experiencing a sudden arrhythmia (abnormal heart rhythm), a conscious, responsive person may be able to cough forcefully and repetitively to maintain enough blood flow to the brain and remain conscious for a few seconds until the arrhythmia is treated. This has been mislabelled ‘cough CPR’ although it’s not a form of traditional resuscitation.

However, UChicago Medicine called out that the idea of cough CPR is only supported by anecdotes and case reports. It further said that simply coughing will not always correct an irregular chaotic rhythm, and it cannot prevent the patient from going into cardiac arrest.

It should be noted that there is no medical evidence to support ‘cough CPR’, which suggests you can help yourself by coughing vigorously if you think you’re having a heart attack.

Further, refuting the claim an article on Heart Matter says, “The ‘cough CPR’ myth has been circulating the internet for a while now, especially on social media sites such as Facebook. If you come across it, please avoid spreading it any further and consider letting the person who posted it know that there’s no truth in it.”

We further reached out to Dr S Vijay Mohan, MD, senior consultant physician, Care Hospitals, and the HoD for the Department of Internal Medicine, to debunk the claim.

“Heart attack is always due to reduced blood supply to the heart muscle, what we call a demand/ supply mismatch. The severity of a heart attack depends on the size of the artery occluded and the area of the heart muscle in jeopardy. The treatment includes either blood clot dissolving medicine in the first three hours, i.e. the window period, or doing an angioplasty with a stent. If the level of obstruction is higher, the muscle damage is greater. And this is why 20 per cent of people die in the first couple of hours of chest pain,” he said.

“Sometimes, we do CPR when there is sudden cardiac standstill or in case of some cardiac rhythm irregularities. CPR is a cardiac massage that may help some patients with this condition. CPR repeatedly increase the chest pressure to stimulate the heart. Any method that causes pressure on the chest alternately can stimulate the heart, technically. Cough does the same thing but is not as effective as scientific CPR. Even when we give a shock to a patient with cardiac arrest the same principle applies. There is nothing wrong in making someone cough during heart attacks but that is not all that is needed. It may help in restoring the heart rhythm sometimes. It’s not a bad idea but taking the patient to a nearby hospital within the window period is vital because time is muscle and heart muscle is life,” he added.